Mailing machines utilizing an inkjet printer to print an indicia on a mailpiece are well known. Typically, an inkjet printer uses a print head consisting of one or more rows of nozzles to apply ink droplets over a printed area on the mailpiece surface. Because the printing must be completed over a period of time while the mailpiece moves past the nozzles, the printed image on the mailpiece could be distorted if the mailpiece is not moved in accordance with a specified speed or along a specified direction. Furthermore, the distance between the mailpiece surface to be printed and the nozzles must be appropriately spaced so as to avoid contact by the mailpiece surface with the nozzles.
For imaging, printers typically use rollers to move a substrate into the printing area while also limiting the gap to maintain image quality. These printers do not provide a mechanism to maintain the correct distance between the substrate surface and the print head for a wide range of substrate thickness. While those printers can be used to make print on regular paper stocks or postcards, they are not designed for printing mailpieces the thickness of which can vary considerably. Furthermore, in a printer that uses belt and rollers to ingest the mailpiece, the hard nip formed by the driven belt and rollers could cause the mailpiece to slow down relative to the transport belt when the mailpiece hits the hard nip. Moreover, if the mailpiece is guided by one or more nips formed by the driven belt and rollers, the motion of the mailpiece could be skewed such that the mailpiece may not travel along a specified direction through the printing area of the printer. The skewed motion of the mailpiece may distort a printed image printed by an inkjet printer or the like.
It is advantageous and desirable to provide a transport system to mailpieces in a printer for digital printing, wherein the aforementioned disadvantages can be eliminated.